A 2011 Lion Television/BBC2/BBC World three-part series exploring the origins of six spices: pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, saffron and vanilla. The series reaches back to the 15th Century at the moment when sea navigation first allowed the Portuguese to cut out the middle eastern middle-man and go directly to the source of the spices, some of which were worth their weight in gold. Spice was the new 'bling', and the series documents the history that sent the superpowers of the time to the other side of the world, brought them into conflict, and in many ways founded global capitalism.
The brief was that the music should be appropriate to the places visited - India, Sri Lanka, the Banda Islands, Morocco, Spain and Mexico - but should also be 'weird and beautiful' and, as far as possible, constructed out of real sounds. As with Leonardo's Dream Machines, there was a desire for the music to both represent the period and the modernity of what was going on, as well as to gesture towards the kind of fusional sounds heard in these locations today. As you can imagine, this wasn't at all easy: I had to somehow become an expert on music from about 8 countries and three continents within a few weeks and then start fashioning my own responses both to what I'd heard and to the brief for the programme. In total I ended up making 81 pieces out of which roughly half were used. As usual with Director Paul Sapin, we worked absolutely together on this trying to get the balance right between the locations, the themes and the narrative, fine-tuning individual works to the nth degree in order to produce something lofty and transcendent enough to live up to the incredible intensity and both intellectual and commercial fervour of the times.
A CD of these tracks will be available shortly.
The brief was that the music should be appropriate to the places visited - India, Sri Lanka, the Banda Islands, Morocco, Spain and Mexico - but should also be 'weird and beautiful' and, as far as possible, constructed out of real sounds. As with Leonardo's Dream Machines, there was a desire for the music to both represent the period and the modernity of what was going on, as well as to gesture towards the kind of fusional sounds heard in these locations today. As you can imagine, this wasn't at all easy: I had to somehow become an expert on music from about 8 countries and three continents within a few weeks and then start fashioning my own responses both to what I'd heard and to the brief for the programme. In total I ended up making 81 pieces out of which roughly half were used. As usual with Director Paul Sapin, we worked absolutely together on this trying to get the balance right between the locations, the themes and the narrative, fine-tuning individual works to the nth degree in order to produce something lofty and transcendent enough to live up to the incredible intensity and both intellectual and commercial fervour of the times.
A CD of these tracks will be available shortly.
